Daily Archives: August 2, 2021

Puntland turns 23 as it demonstrates a shining example of Somalia's federalism

GAROWE, Puntland -Puntland, the oldest Federal-State in Somalia is celebrating its 23rd-anniversary of establishment, which comes at the time the Horn of Africa is in the electioneering period.

In 1998, the Puntland State of Somalia was born, paving way for federalism, after years of turmoil which was triggered by the ouster of a military regime in 1991 by clan warlords. Successive governments failed to cure Somalia's problems, paving way for federalism.

Puntland has notable founding fathers - Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who served as the fledgling state's founding president between 1998-2004, and Abdirahman Farole praised for leading by example from 2009 to 2014.

The Federal State had undergone major changes coupled with development progress and strong federalism under Farole's leadership, including getting a constitution, a flag, and establishing functioning security agencies just like PMPF.

In addition, the Farole administration had played a role in the preparation of the current provisional constitution of Somalia by hosting in Garowe two Constitutional Consultative Conferences in 2012 that led to the ending of the transition.

For all these years, Puntland has been pushing for strong federalism in Somalia, often triggering tough differences between Mogadishu and Garowe. Federalism was picked as the only model that could end cut-throat competition for state power in Somalia.

With six regional presidents so far, Puntland has showcased high-profile self-reliance in terms of resource mobilization and distribution, thus setting a strong foundation that can be used as a typical model.

For 23 years, Puntland has recorded major achievements including but not limited to completing key development projects, announcing new ones, and the efforts it made for Somalia's rebuilding. It had a role in Somalia's current constitution draft.

The state has strong institutions which are key in the democratization process. This October, the state is set to hold universal suffrage elections, the first of its kind in Somalia. Already, several areas have registered voters, who are set to contest in this process.

Across Somalia, key political leadership positions have always been defined through the clan-based model, which is a source of conflict. Besides Somaliland, it's only Puntland that has kickstarted this important exercise of voter registration.

In April, Puntland came out in full force opposing outgoing President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo's term. The outgoing president had mobilized parliament for unconstitutional term extension, leading to crisis talks that paved way for a clear election calendar.

Deni and his Jubaland counterpart Ahmed Islam Mohamed Madobe were on record for opposing term extension, arguing that it would create a recipe for chaos and anarchy in the country. They called for international partners' intervention.

Further, Puntland has minimized the infiltration of Al-Shabaab and IS-Somalia militants, through the use of Puntland Security Forces [PSF]. The regional government does not rely on the national army and AMISOM for crushing the militants.

GAROWE ONLINE

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Puntland turns 23 as it demonstrates a shining example of Somalia's federalism - Garowe Online

We talked with Professor Gyrgy Schpflin about, among other things, the problems of migration, juridocracy, federalism, cultural Marxism and the future of the Union.

If we immediately grab the bull by the horns, dont you think that the European Union has strayed far from the values and ideals advocated by the founding fathers?

Yes, agreed, but would add that the problems that the founding fathers sought to solve were very different from what the EU faces today. What has been the central principle and justification for integration was conflict resolution by consent. The EU has largely given up on this principle and is now driven by the accumulation of power. I see this as dangerous, not least, because it reduces integration to a single factor that is pursued whether the consent is there or not.

Consent has emerged as a key issue in EU politics and we may well be at a turning point when it comes to defining democracy. The divide is between those who state that central to democracy is the consent of the governed, i.e. the sovereign people, as against those who insist that the heart of democracy is values, as defined by liberal politicians and the courts. The rise of political decision-making by otherwise unaccountable judges like the European Court of Justice transforms democracy into juristocracy. The Brexit vote is evidence that when a society feels deprived of political power, it will strike back (I write as someone who supported Remain, but fully accept the Brexit vote).

Marxism is in complete contradiction with European values, so how could the EU leadership celebrate the unveiling of the monument to Karl Marx on the bicentennial of his birth?

If you look at the recent transformation of European values ever more power to the EU they are not that far from Marxs idea of concentrating power to transform the world, structurally at any rate. And the EU, the symbolic Brussels, has come to believe that it has this transformative role legitimated by history. Salvationism has a long history in Europe. What is worrying is that the EU is subordinating what it can to this political monoculture. Let me add that in practice the process is nothing like as far-reaching as Marxism-Leninism (or Titoism for that matter). And, of course, communist parties are there in the European Parliament.

Would you agree with the claim that cultural Marxism is destroying the foundations of our European civilization?

Whether we like it or not, Marxism and other forms of both left and right radicalism are a part of the European tradition. But I wouldnt call it cultural Marxism, because there is a lot of Foucault in the mix, plus some thoughts taken from Rawls and Gramsci. Im enough of an optimist to think that European civilisation is resilient enough for its foundations to live on, maybe in an altered state. The signs of resistance are visible. There is an interesting revival of Roman Catholic thought in France, there is growing evidence that in Italy, France again and in Spain the younger generation sympathises with centre-right ideas. And, maybe most importantly, there is nationhood, whether civic or ethnic. The divide between Central Europe, where nationhood is seen as the necessary condition of freedom, and the West is growing.

Why is the Brussels Eurocracy so opposed to Hungary and Poland, which want to reform the judicial system and clean it of the debris that dates back to the times of communist totalitarianism?

Because the EU has been captured by the liberal left and these liberals understand that their best chance of imposing their values on Central Europe lies through juristocracy. Hungary and Poland are in the cross-hairs because they are quite explicit in the pursuit of their national conservative project.

Why does Brussels insist on supporting mass migration from the Third World, even though experience shows that it brings ghettoisation, increased crime and violence, cultural and religious conflicts, and the financial burden?

There is a labour market answer, that Western countries need cheap labour to do jobs that no one else will do. But more importantly, there is post-colonial guilt, which is absent in Central Europe. The West finds this inexplicable and refuses to accept the relevance of both the communist and the imperial past (Prussia, Russia, Ottomans, Austria-Hungary) as a central feature of the Central European memory. Somehow these imperial subjugations dont count.

Crucially, whereas the West was able (broadly speaking) to exit the trauma of the Second World War, this was and is not true of the communist ruled countries. And, thirdly, it is explained by universalism, that there is a single humanity and that it is Europes historic task to bring it together. This universalism has its roots in Christianity (equally in Islam), in Marxism and in the Enlightenment. Now that the Enlightenment legacy that science solves everything is in trouble, given that complexity theory undermines the Newtonian view of the world, the universalists prefer to ignore the evidence.

Brussels is working hard to impose a radical LGBT (and the rest of the alphabet) agenda on all members of the Union. What do you think is the cause and goal of this imposition?

Essentially because LGBT can be presented as a universal vulnerable minority. Note that the saliency of the issue is quite recent, its an easy issue to bring into politics and it means that other, equally vulnerable minorities, like the disabled, can be ignored. The protection of minorities is there in Article 2 of the Treaty, but the EU simply rejects national minorities as having anything to do with it look what happened to the Minority SafePack, a Citizens Initiative that received well over a million signatures, but was swept to one side by the Commission.

Do you not find it hypocritical that the EU, on the one hand, declares its commitment to human rights and cooperates with China, where people are tortured in camps on the basis of their ethnic, religious or political affiliation and even used as slave labour?

You can call it hypocritical, but it can equally be called pragmatism. Note that ignoring the fate of the Uighurs has a universalist logic. If the West were to adopt the Uighur cause, then why not other ethno-religious minorities that are badly treated?

You do not find it interesting that Brussels imposes centralization on the members, but at the first major test, ie. pandemic of the Chinese virus, the bureaucratic mastodon completely gave up, and each country had to deal with the pandemic on its own?

To be fair, the EU had no experience in health issues these are member state competence and when it came face to face with the Covid crisis, it made an almighty mess of it. The Commission had neither the human resources nor the infrastructure to deal with the pandemic. The EU tripped up on its own belief system, that more Europe is the answer to everything. The same is true of the 2008 financial crisis and migration (2015).

The leadership of the Union reacts sharply against any member that does not want to fully submit to their agenda; Poland, Hungary, and recently also Slovenia. They threaten with suspensions, blockade of financial resources, exclusion. Did Brexit not taught these people anything, they want the disintegration of the Union?

In truth, Brexit was a great relief to Brussels, because or so many people thought the absence of the UK would make it easier to pursue the federalist agenda. Poland, Hungary, actually Central Europe as a whole, are an unwelcome obstacle to that agenda. But note that there are anti-federalist member states in West, like Sweden, not to mention the approximately one-third or more of Western voters who are anti-federalist. I find the rise of Vox (Spain) or Chega (Portugal) fascinating in this context.

You have been a Member of the European Parliament for a long time. Can you tell us how strong the influence of lobby groups is on the functioning of this body?

Im the wrong person to ask because I mostly worked in non-legislative committees (Constitution, Foreign Affairs), so I was not worth lobbying. But anecdotally, yes, there is endless lobbying, just as there is in the Commission. And these lobbies are accountable to no one. The same is true of the Brussels NGO-think tank ecosystem.

Finally, can you tell us your view on the future of the European Union?

Starting with my first answer democracy at the crossroads and the decline of conflict resolution I see major disagreements ahead. The Single Market is beneficial, though much less for the economically weaker Central Europeans, but political clashes will not be easy to resolve as long as the liberal-federalist current holds sway. Can Europe be further integrated without the consent of a sizeable minority? I would say no, unless it is pursued coercively the signs of this coercion exist and are hard to ignore. The countries of Central Europe have a very recent experience of coercion and reject it.

In this connection, the Declaration of 16 parties of the 2 July on the future of the EU is of considerable significance, because it offers a clear, alternative basis for the integration of Europe, one where the member states play an active role and supervisory institutions can check the Brussels federalists. Crucially, the centre-right insists that democracy is about consent and consent cannot be overridden by values. A system ruled by values undermines its own pluralism and is well on the way to becoming an oligarchy. The left may well dismiss this as populism, but the commitment to the superiority of democratic voting to elite rule (through juristocracy) is the heart of democracy as it has emerged in Europe in the last two-three centuries.

To quote the Declaration, the use of political structures and the law to create a European superstate and new social structures is a manifestation of the dangerous and invasive social engineering known from the past, which must provoke legitimate resistance.

The elections to the European Parliament in 2024 could well turn out to be a watershed in the history of Europe, giving consent a qualitatively stronger role.

*Bogdan Sajovic is a journalist at Demokracija Magazine

**Gyrgy Schpflin (b. Budapest 1939) was formerly professor of politics at the university of London, a Fidesz member of the European Parliament (2004-2019) and is currently Senior Research Fellow at iASK (Kszeg) and at the Public Service University Budapest. His most recent book is The European Polis (Ludovika, 2021)

This interview appeared for the first time in Demokracija Magazine in Slovenia and can be accessed here:https://demokracija.eu/world/gyorgy-schopflin-the-eu-tripped-up-on-its-own-belief-system-that-more-europe-is-the-answer-to-everything/

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Gyrgy Schpflin: 'EU Stumbled Up On Its Own Belief System, That More Europe Is The Answer To Everything' Interview - Eurasia Review

Boise, Idaho Governor Brad Little signed on to an amicus brief today related to a case before the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS), seeking to protect the lives of preborn babies and restore state sovereignty.

Protecting the lives of preborn babies has always been and will continue to be a priority of mine. I am also a defender of state sovereignty. My decision to join this lawsuit to protect lives and states rights reflects my conservative approach to constitutional interpretation. The right to an abortion is a judicial creation. It is not a right expressed in the U.S. Constitution. I am asking the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify there is no constitutional right to an abortion and restore state sovereignty by allowing states to regulate all abortions consistent with the principles of democratic self-governance, Governor Little said.

As of today, the governors of Idaho, Montana, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Iowa, South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Missouri, and Oklahoma have joined a Governors amicus brief in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization. The case centers around a 2018 Mississippi law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks except in medical emergencies or severe fetal abnormality. Lower courts held that Mississippis law violated the holdings in Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), in which non-elected justices recognized a right to abortion exists contrary to the text and original meaning of the Constitution.

The Governors amicus brief supports the State of Mississippis cert petition, which SCOTUS accepted, to determine whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.

The Governors amicus brief requests SCOTUS overrule Roe and Casey because there is no constitutional right to an abortion and, according to the principle of federalism, rights not granted in the U.S. Constitution should be entrusted to states to control.

SCOTUS is expected to hear the case in the fall.

The Governors amicus brief can be found here.

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden joined 17 other attorneys general in a similar amicus brief earlier this year.

Governor Little also signed the Fetal Heartbeat Bill into law in April to protect the lives of preborn babies.

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Gov. Little signs on to pro-life, states' rights amicus brief seeking SCOTUS overrule of Roe v. Wade - Office of the Governor - Governor Brad Little

//= do_shortcode('[in-content-square]')?> Andrew RT Davies picture by Senedd Cymru (CC BY 2.0).

Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies says the Welsh media is in hock to the nationalist agenda.

He accuses BBC Wales and nationalist news sites of trying to push a narrative that he says will lead to the demise of Britain.

Andrew RT Davies also questions the Unionist credentials of First Minister Mark Drakeford and criticises Welsh Labour for promoting politically extreme ideas on federalism.

He makes the claims in an article for Mail+ saying: Who needs nationalist opponents like Plaid Cymru when you have so-called Unionist friends like Welsh Labour?

But we shouldnt be surprised that the media here are in hock to the nationalist agenda that amplifies the so-called inevitable end of the Union: not only do many of them harbour the same opinions, but they rely on that agenda for their own existence.

Without the constant reporting by BBC Wales and taxpayer-funded nationalist news sites about Wales being so different, it would leave them rudderless and without purpose.

Extreme

His comments are published by a Daily Mail media group which was last week found to be the most read news outlet in Wales, with print and online stories viewed by 18% of the population. The Daily Mail was followed by the Guardian (17%), The Sun (13%) and the Western Mail (9%).

Andrew RT Davies also blasts Welsh Labour for publishing the Reforming our Union report on federalism just three months after the Senedd election.

He writes: This is whats in store for us in the Senedd over the next five years: listening to Labour ministers regurgitate historically ignorant, politically extreme ideas and a demonstrably poor understanding of sovereignty in Britain as they call for a federalist system that will only serve to worsen, not solve, the issues present in Wales.

He describes Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford as being troublingly close to SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and questions the Welsh Labour leaders claims of being a Unionist.

He says that nationalists in Wales and Scotland are trying to centrally hoard powers, in a way the Conservative Government in Westminster has been keen to avoid.

The Institute of Economic Affairs, a right-wing think tank, described Britain in 2019 as being one of the most centralised countries in the world.

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Andrew RT Davies accuses media in Wales of having a 'nationalist agenda' - Nation.Cymru